Imposition of back door tax

Published:11:02Friday 11 January 2013

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I am a keen gardener and have been resident in the Horsham area for some nine years. When my wife and I first arrived and were allocated a brown bin we were given to understand that the green waste would be collected, processed and sold on as useful compost - presumably at some level of return for HDC.

It therefore seems reasonable, under the Disclosure of Information Act, to ask Horsham District Council to disclose how the scheme works and to provide full accounts of the undertaking, on a year by year basis, since its introduction.

Fundamentally, we would like to know whether the scheme makes a profit, a loss or breaks even.

Without such information my inclination is to agree with councillor Malcolm Curnock that the imposition of a £29 charge is a substitute for council tax or, in his own words ‘It’s back door taxation’.